TaylorFade 10+ year member
I fail.
Pulled the trigger on one of these and it was waiting for me when I got back from finals. I had to see for myself. And since 2k is where **** starts to get real... I had to test this thing out.
It was like $169 shipped to my door from eBay.
First impressions... this thing is light. In my opinion, you can tell a lot about an amp by it's heft. I realize electronics are getting smaller and lighter, but there are still components that need some *** to get the job done.
Umm... awkward. Next to my other 2k@1 amps.
Now, the top two aren't really a fair fight. But since the 20.1 isn't a super "cheater" amp, I find the 20.1 vs AP2k a very, very interesting comparison. They are on opposite ends of the spectrum in quality, reliability and well... price.
Guts...
Ok, on to the testing. I set the gains with the O-Scope with no load like every single person on the planet with a DD-1 would and 99.9% of people with a scope would. Which happened to be around 1/4 gain. Which is fair because the 80prs does like 6v on the sub out. Interestingly enough, for those of you without an O-Scope or DD-1 and have to use the square root/DMM method, it was right on the 45 acv number.
Well, wired up to 2ohms... nothing to write home about but I thought I'd throw it in. 40acv and 10aca for 400w @ 4ohms. but I know that's not what you guys want to see.
Wired to .5... here you go...
53.2 acv
34.1 aca
For a grand total of 1,814 watts rising to 1.6ohms at 13.3v.
Not too shabby, you say? Well... pay particular attention to the scope in the upper right of that pic. This is where they get you. And this is where the testing of the APSM-1500 went wrong. You saw the wave when I set the gains in the pics above. Well, here's a close up of the scope with a load and playing...
Yeah. Not good. You think you're all clean and what not. That is until you hook your subs up. Ouch.
All of this testing is at my "demo" volume. Which is 50/60. I listened to it 45/60 on the way to work and my subs were pissed. They got stinky but this wasn't about them. This was about the amp. It got hot enough that I could smell it and it went into thermal protect right at the 30 minute mark on the ride to work. It wouldn't come out of protect until another 15 minutes.
Anyway... the good news is.. it was $170. It sounds fine. The fan is noticeable but not annoying. Although it seemingly does very little to keep the amp cool. But then again, I was running it at .5. Normal, everyday output compared to the 20.1 just wasn't there. I had to boost it way over where the 20.1 was running to keep up. And boosting from where it was isn't the greatest or healthiest idea for your subs.
For those of you considering them for SPL, it did right around the same number on the TL as my 20.1 but I had to boost the sub out +6db to get it to the same number as the 20.1 so take that for what's it's worth.
I keep comparing it to the 20.1 because although they are on opposite ends of the spectrum in quality and price... they are actually pretty comparable in ouput. I've never seen more than 2.5k out of the 20.1 and in the same setting as this APSM, I get around 1,800w also. But it's clean. And as such, it's louder.
I'm not sure what else you guys would like to see from it. If there's something else or another way you'd like me to test it, I'm all ears.
It was like $169 shipped to my door from eBay.
First impressions... this thing is light. In my opinion, you can tell a lot about an amp by it's heft. I realize electronics are getting smaller and lighter, but there are still components that need some *** to get the job done.
Umm... awkward. Next to my other 2k@1 amps.
Now, the top two aren't really a fair fight. But since the 20.1 isn't a super "cheater" amp, I find the 20.1 vs AP2k a very, very interesting comparison. They are on opposite ends of the spectrum in quality, reliability and well... price.
Guts...
Ok, on to the testing. I set the gains with the O-Scope with no load like every single person on the planet with a DD-1 would and 99.9% of people with a scope would. Which happened to be around 1/4 gain. Which is fair because the 80prs does like 6v on the sub out. Interestingly enough, for those of you without an O-Scope or DD-1 and have to use the square root/DMM method, it was right on the 45 acv number.
Well, wired up to 2ohms... nothing to write home about but I thought I'd throw it in. 40acv and 10aca for 400w @ 4ohms. but I know that's not what you guys want to see.
Wired to .5... here you go...
53.2 acv
34.1 aca
For a grand total of 1,814 watts rising to 1.6ohms at 13.3v.
Not too shabby, you say? Well... pay particular attention to the scope in the upper right of that pic. This is where they get you. And this is where the testing of the APSM-1500 went wrong. You saw the wave when I set the gains in the pics above. Well, here's a close up of the scope with a load and playing...
Yeah. Not good. You think you're all clean and what not. That is until you hook your subs up. Ouch.
All of this testing is at my "demo" volume. Which is 50/60. I listened to it 45/60 on the way to work and my subs were pissed. They got stinky but this wasn't about them. This was about the amp. It got hot enough that I could smell it and it went into thermal protect right at the 30 minute mark on the ride to work. It wouldn't come out of protect until another 15 minutes.
Anyway... the good news is.. it was $170. It sounds fine. The fan is noticeable but not annoying. Although it seemingly does very little to keep the amp cool. But then again, I was running it at .5. Normal, everyday output compared to the 20.1 just wasn't there. I had to boost it way over where the 20.1 was running to keep up. And boosting from where it was isn't the greatest or healthiest idea for your subs.
For those of you considering them for SPL, it did right around the same number on the TL as my 20.1 but I had to boost the sub out +6db to get it to the same number as the 20.1 so take that for what's it's worth.
I keep comparing it to the 20.1 because although they are on opposite ends of the spectrum in quality and price... they are actually pretty comparable in ouput. I've never seen more than 2.5k out of the 20.1 and in the same setting as this APSM, I get around 1,800w also. But it's clean. And as such, it's louder.
I'm not sure what else you guys would like to see from it. If there's something else or another way you'd like me to test it, I'm all ears.
